In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, I, the inventor, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. I also grow a lesser number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits, usually to capture recessive traits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of nectarine tree, which has been denominated varietally as ‘Pearlicious II’.
The present variety was hybridized by me in 2001 as a first generation cross using ‘Rose Diamond’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 7,421) nectarine as the selected seed parent and an unnamed white flesh nectarine seedling (unpatented) as the selected pollen parent. The fruit of this cross was gathered in the spring of 2001, and the seeds were removed from the fruit, germinated using an embryo rescue technique, and grown as seedlings on their own root in my greenhouse. Upon reaching dormancy the seedlings were transplanted as a group to a cultivated area of my experimental orchard located near Le Grand, Calif., in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). During the fruit evaluation season of 2005 I selected the present variety as a single tree from the group of seedlings described above. After its initial selection in 2005, the present variety was carefully observed and further evaluated during each subsequent fruiting season. As part of this testing process, I asexually reproduced the present variety by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Nemaguard’ (unpatented) rootstock upon which the present variety was compatible and true to type.
The present variety is similar to its seed parent, ‘Rose Diamond’ nectarine by requiring about 500 chilling hours and by producing nectarines that are mostly red in skin color, clingstone in type, and firm in texture, but is distinguished therefrom by producing fruit that is white instead of yellow in flesh color, that is sub-acidic instead of acidic in flavor, and that matures about four days later.
The present variety is most similar to ‘Pearlicious III’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 18,706) nectarine by producing nectarines that are white in flesh color, clingstone in type, firm in texture, and sub-acidic in flavor, but is distinguished therefrom by requiring less chilling hours, by having a bitter instead of sweet kernel, and by producing fruit that is clingstone instead of freestone in type and that matures about seven days earlier.